It's been a rough couple of weeks for Java. Security issues are dogging the code, the latest fix may cause almost as many problems as it solves, and now Apple has decided to block Java completely.
French blog MacGeneration originally picked up the blockade, noticing that an update to Apple's XProtect now blocks all versions of …

Re: wasted opportunity

It's true that there are problems with ECMAScript for writing non-trivial programs, notably the lack of a real type system. (Prototype-based OO languages, it turns out, just don't work as well as class-based ones once the number of distinct types gets significant; remembering constraints is simply too hard for developers.) But most of the problems with ECMAScript are because most of the people writing it - particularly including self-anointed "experts" like Resig[2] - can't be bothered to actually learn the language or write correct code.[3]

The root problem is that the vast majority of software is crap. It will continue to be crap for the foreseeable future, since few developers or development organizations show any real interest in improving quality. And while there have been innumerable proposals for improving software quality, few have seen widespread attempts at adoption, and it's very probable that, as Fred Brooks and others argued, there is no silver bullet anyway.

[1] "Javascript" refers either to the now-obsolete ancestor (originally named "LiveScript") of ECMAScript, or one implementation of ECMAScript. If people can't even get the name right, I suppose it's no wonder they can't get the code right.

[2] Original author of the popular, execrable jQuery library.

[3] As of a few years ago, jQuery still contained erroneous constructs such as "typeof x == 'array'" (which is always false). More damning was Resig's public hissy fit when Google's correct implementation didn't behave the way he wanted it to, with regard to iterating over properties; his code was based on a schoolboy error that anyone with even glancing familiarity with the ECMAScript spec would have spotted, but Resig insisted it was correct because it worked in most implementations. Someone with that attitude shouldn't be writing software at all.

50% Java - This SUCKS!

I keep a laptop on he kitchen table so I can check out the news over breakfast - My Firefox browser is set to open with 6 tabs as a home page- My local (Calgary) newspapers home page, Google news, my online brokerage home page, The Register, Gmail and my Digital newpaper subscription (Postmedia).

This morning I shut off Java script to see what would happen.

Calgary Herald website - Can't see any problems, so far so good.

Google news- Works but the formatting is off- text overlaps images slightly.

RBC Direct- Some graphics appear but site is totally nonfunctional- cannot log in.